WCB: 6 Days before Valentine's Day

It's almost Valentine's Day.
China Cat and Willow are so lovable with each other
I thought they would be wonderful featured for Valentine's Day.It's time for Weekend Cat Events!
Be sure to visit everyone...

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Weekend Cat Blogging #192 is hosted by
Mr. Tigger at The M-Cats Club
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Bad Kitty Cats Festival of Chaos Edition 83 is hosted by
Kashim & Othello and Salome at Three Tabby Cats in Vienna
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The Carnival of the Cats #256,
with a theme of silhouette, is hosted by
The Bengal Brats at Pet's Garden Blog

Happy Easter!

(background graphic by Kim Liddiard - www.digitalscrapbookplace.com)

Time for Mardi Gras!

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Happy Mardi Gras to everyone!

Happy New Year's Eve from Willow & China Cat!

Happy New Year's Eve from Kara & Alice!

Biscuit, Carmen and St. Nicholas

Today is St. Nicholas Day. It is celebrated in many countries. The real story of Santa Claus began with a real man named Nicholas born in the third century in a Greek village called Patara. He had wealthy parents and they raised him as a devout Christian. Unfortunately both his parents died in an epidemic when he was still young. Fortunately for the poor, Nicholas used his inheritance to help the needy, the sick and the suffering. He dedicated his life to God and soon became the Bishop of Myra. He was known for his generosity to those in need, his love for children and his concern for sailors and ships. Nicholas ended up suffering for his faith and was exiled and put in prison. After his release from prison he continued his good works until he died December 6th, AD 343 and the anniversary of his death became our celebration of St. Nicholas Day.
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One story of St. Nicholas led to the custom of him being a gift giver. Mysteriously bags of gold or gold balls were tossed into some windows to provide dowries, landing in the shoes that were left by the fire to dry. So now on St. Nicholas Day, children leave out shoes or stockings hoping for some gifts from St. Nicholas, which is not unlike our Santa Claus custom with stockings.
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Now, I think that if St. Nicholas liked children, he surely liked dogs also. These two are Carmen and Biscuit. They are my in-laws dogs and Biscuit has been featured here before. Carmen is new to the family this year and the two of them are so cute together.
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I took these pictures at Thanksgiving and you can see that such good dogs
will definitely be getting some treats... or maybe some golden colored balls to play with. Until then, they have a lot of fun playing together!
I did take quite a few more of these pictures while they were playing,
but they were moving around way too fast to get clear photos!
Hopefully, I will do better at Christmas!

Happy Thanksgiving!

Wicked Halloween

I was having problems getting China Cat & Willow
dressed up for Halloween.
I wanted to enter them in Skeezix's Halloween Contest
but Willow was impossible
and China Cat was not really going for it either.
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So this became their entry for the contest.Happy Halloween!

It's my dad's birthday today!

It's my dad's birthday!
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Mom and Dad live in a different state than us so we won't get to see them but we will call tonight. Whenever my parent's come to visit we always have pizza the first night.
So, for Dad's birthday RDG picked out two Trader Joe's Pizzas.
We are having Goat Cheese and Roasted Tomato Pizza
and Pizza Pomodoro.
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To surprise Dad, China Cat & Willow got ready for his birthday party.
They were a little disappointed that he couldn't really come to their party.
To ease their disappointment, they both received Temptations
and everyone was happy! Kashim and Othello are hosting
Weekend Cat Blogging #111 over at Paulchen's FoodBlog.
They already have quite a few cats listed so it's time to visit all those kitties!

Happy Father's Day Big Janitor

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And not only is it Father's Day
but it's time for Weekend Cat Blogging #106
over at A Byootaful Life.
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Check out all the weekend kitties and Puddy
who was very industriously cleaning off a camera strap.
What kitty doesn't like a camera strap?

Big Green Egg Ribs

Last Sunday RDG barbecued ribs in the Big Green Egg. We got them from Soulard Farmer's Market Saturday morning. This type of beef rib is often called Dinosaur Bones because they're huge. They were very inexpensive compared to the more commonly barbecued pork ribs. As they are very fatty, they are best barbecued for long periods of time at low temperatures or braised. All you have to do according to RDG is "wash them, put on a dry rub, throw them in the Big Green Egg for about 10 hours and then boom!"
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To get a little more technical than RDG,
after washing and drying the ribs,
he used Penzeys Spices "Galena Street Ribs & Chicken Rub".
This rub is an authentic and traditional Southern-style seasoning,
with hints of sage, nutmeg and cayenne.
Penzeys considers it one of it's best blends. RDG received this spice,
along with three others, from his nephew on his birthday.
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He put the 3 slabs of ribs into the Egg
and smoked them with hickory chips
(which had first soaked in water for one half hour).
He shut the lid and left them in there to smoke for 10 hours
kept at 200 degrees. He mentioned that next time he does 3 slabs,
he will let them smoke longer - maybe 14 hours.
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Here are those lovely smoked ribs. And, of course, here is the Big Green Egg. It's not in it's usual position however due to the fact it poured down rain for most of the day.

Memorial Day Parade

This is from Memorial Day.
We always go to Jefferson Barracks National Cemetery,
usually on Sunday morning.
That is when the boy scouts in the area put flags up
by every grave stone in the cemetery.
There are a few graves there of people we have known
that we always bring flowers to place on their graves.
This year we went on Monday morning
and we were just in time to see this parade of veterans.
It was very moving. They had a ceremony afterwards.

Remembering Those Who Served...

Memorial Day
Jefferson Barracks National Cemetary
St. Louis, Missouri
May 28, 2007

Hooray for Moms!

Happy Easter!

The Long-Awaited St. Pat's Parade Pictures are here...